<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2016-2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Learning Journal',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'BUS 1101: Principles of Business Management',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2016-2017',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="Unit1">
	<h2>Unit 1</h2>
	<p>
		The timing on this assignment is kind of funny, as I just today I became aware of a situation that needs to be addressed.
		I&apos;m basically being evicted in fourteen days.
		As such, I&apos;ve got myself a goal: find housing.
		The goal was suddenly dropped on me, but sometimes, goals are like that.
		Things don&apos;t always work out as planned.
	</p>
	<p>
		This goal is plenty specific, within reason.
		I don&apos;t have a specific apartment building that I just have to get into, but the requirements for my new apartment are very specific.
		It&apos;s got to be affordable on my meager paycheck, it&apos;s got to be available without a past rental history, and it&apos;s got to be in the 97477 $a[ZIP] code area.
	</p>
	<p>
		This goal is of course concrete enough to be measurable as well.
		Am I in an apartment yet?
		Can I afford to remain here?
		If I&apos;ve answered &quot;yes&quot; to both questions, I&apos;ve accomplished my goal.
		Beyond that, things to consider when evaluating to what extent I&apos;ve succeeded include how cheap of an apartment I&apos;ve managed to get into (I don&apos;t need something fancy, I just need to be able to afford it), how close to my workplace it is (as a pedestrian, this matters; I&apos;ll get a bike if I need to though), whether or not I have to sign a long-term agreement to get in, and how good the T-Mobile coverage in the area is.
		(I need an Internet connection to continue my schooling here at University of the People, and my current Internet connection is through T-Mobile.
		If I can&apos;t get reception, I&apos;ll have to switch to a more-expensive provider, essentially increasing the cost of rent.)
	</p>
	<p>
		This goal might not seem overly-aggressive on the surface, but if you look deeper, you&apos;ll see that it&apos;s going to be a challenge.
		Two weeks isn&apos;t a long period of time.
		Meanwhile, I&apos;m in a tiring job, and barely have time for schoolwork as it is.
		Now on top of schoolwork and my day job, I&apos;ve got to research housing.
		Likewise, I&apos;m not paid a whole lot, so the number of apartments with rent prices that can fit within my budget are going to be minimal.
	</p>
	<p>
		Finding an apartment seems like a realistic goal to me.
		It&apos;s by no means going to be easy, but people find apartments to live in all the time.
		The fact is, people need shelter, so the process, while not fun, has to be possible.
	</p>
	<p>
		I have fourteen days before I have to leave my current home.
		This goal is time-bound, and I know exactly how much time I have to complete it.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit2">
	<h2>Unit 2</h2>
	<p>
		Thankfully, I don&apos;t engage in stereotyping myself.
		I often can&apos;t even tell what race people are when I look at them because, quite frankly, I don&apos;t care.
		I don&apos;t know what subtle facial features to look for and such, because I have no reason to differentiate.
		To me, people are people.
		While it&apos;s much easier to tell the sex of a person, I don&apos;t use that for stereotyping either.
		While I&apos;m cisgendered myself, meaning that my gender is the one expected for those of my sex, I also respect and have friends in the transgendered community.
		As such, I don&apos;t relate any particular behaviors, thoughts, or actions to a specific sex.
		Until I have time to learn about who you are, I don&apos;t try to box you into predefined categories.
		I&apos;m not sure if you&apos;ve noticed in my writings in this course so far, but I don&apos;t even use the words &quot;he&quot; and &quot;she&quot;, partially for this reason.
	</p>
	<p>
		That said, while I don&apos;t engage in stereotyping, I do take in first impressions.
		probably a couple weeks ago, I met one of the shift leaders at my new job.
		They seemed to be the type that didn&apos;t want to make the workplace an enjoyable place to be.
		They seemed to be a stickler for rules, and while they weren&apos;t rude or anything, they seemed like the type of person that you wouldn&apos;t want at a party.
		However, my encounter with them that day was only brief.
		From then on, I kind of avoided them a bit.
		I mean, I didn&apos;t go out of my way to dodge them or anything, but I was pretty quiet around them and didn&apos;t actively approach them.
		There was later an incident where I could choose to go home early or stay and have someone else told not to come in.
		I chose to stay.
		This shift leader was going to be running the next shift, and when they came in and found out that this other employee was told not to come in, they were quite unhappy.
		They told off the previous shift leader, saying that they shouldn&apos;t be calling off employees from another shift leader&apos;s shift.
		They made the atmosphere quite uncomfortable, the tension between them and the previous shift leader (there was some overlap in when these two shift leaders were scheduled to work) quite visible.
		This backed up the theory that they were a bit of a stickler for rules and order.
		However, the next day, the shift leader seemed to open up to me a bit.
		They explained what the situation was.
		Apparently, the head manager has been scheduling bad workers during this shift leader&apos;s shift, then complaining that the human-hour-to-profit ratio was bad.
		I was a wildcard because they didn&apos;t know my work ethic and competency level, so when a known-good worker was removed from their roster, it kind of ticked them off.
		They&apos;ve been dealing with these two bad workers for a few weeks, too.
		With a better crew on duty, the shift leader was actually a lot more friendly and fun to work with.
	</p>
	<p>
		Learning what this shift leader was really like, I stopped avoiding them and started actually starting conversations with them and joking with them.
		For example, they told one person not to sell pizzas that they didn&apos;t like.
		By that, they meant that if it wasn&apos;t a pizza of a high enough quality that they&apos;d want to buy it, they shouldn&apos;t sell it.
		However, I asked that if I don&apos;t like bacon, I shouldn&apos;t sell the three meat pizzas to customers.
		In the future, I should try to avoid jumping to conclusions about people.
		It can be a bit difficult when you don&apos;t have much information.
		I, like most people, tend to automatically extrapolate using the information that I have, but I need to work on doing that less.
		Until I have more actual data to work with, I shouldn&apos;t judge people positively or negatively.
		Everyone should have a blank slate to begin with.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit4">
	<h2>Unit 4</h2>
	<ol start="0">
		<li>
			Past success:
			<ul>
				<li>
					I finally acquired a short domain name, <code>//y.st.</code>, then used it to host a <a href="https://y.st./">website</a> and to use a custom <a href="mailto:contact@y.st">email address</a>.
				</li>
				<li>
					I&apos;ve successfully kept a <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/">daily journal</a> for six hundred forty-two days and counting.
				</li>
				<li>
					I built a <a href="https://git.volatile.ch./y.st./OnionSpider">Web spider</a>.
					I never had time to complete some changes required for use with my limited resources and it&apos;s fallen into disrepair.
					However, at one point, it was crawling certain parts of the Web and indexing pages!
				</li>
				<li>
					I built code for an object class that perfectly <a href="https://git.volatile.ch./y.st./include.d/src/master/st/y/uri.php">parses, validates, and normalizes $a[URI]s</a>.
					Scheme-specific syntax isn&apos;t yet taken into account, but I&apos;m working on that in my scraps of spare time.
				</li>
				<li>
					I&apos;ve installed and continue to run entirely free operating systems on all of my computing devices.
					I don&apos;t give in and run proprietary software when it&apos;s requested of me; instead, I always find a free solution to use instead.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Core values:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Activism
						</li>
						<li>
							Compassion
						</li>
						<li>
							Critical thinking
						</li>
						<li>
							Freedom
						</li>
						<li>
							Hope
						</li>
						<li>
							Intelligence
						</li>
						<li>
							Privacy
						</li>
						<li>
							Security
						</li>
						<li>
							Skepticism
						</li>
						<li>
							Veganism
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Most important values:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Critical thinking
						</li>
						<li>
							Freedom
						</li>
						<li>
							Intelligence
						</li>
						<li>
							Privacy
						</li>
						<li>
							Security
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Most important value: <strong>freedom</strong>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Identify Contributions:
			<ul>
				<li>
					The world in general:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Develop <a href="https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">free (as in freedom, not as in gratis) software</a> solutions to replace proprietary software that has no alternative yet
						</li>
						<li>
							Develop <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Free_culture_movement">free (as in freedom, not as in gratis) cultural</a> works to help with the lack of free cultural works currently available
						</li>
						<li>
							Keep my greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum (for example, by traveling via bicycle and avoiding animal products)
						</li>
						<li>
							File bug reports against free software projects so that their bugs are known and get fixed
						</li>
						<li>
							Write bug patches and feature patches for free software projects
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					My family (I won&apos;t ever have children and will likely never marry, so I&apos;ll focus on other family members):
					<ul>
						<li>
							Convince my mother to seek mental help (If I do that, it would help my entire immediate family)
						</li>
						<li>
							Help keep my siblings grounded, so they continue to understand that they&apos;re not the ones that are crazy
						</li>
						<li>
							Provide a place for my youngest sibling to go if my sibling needs to escape, as that&apos;s my only sibling still living with our mother
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					My employer or future employers
					<ul>
						<li>
							Lead by example
						</li>
						<li>
							Always try to do my best work
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					My friends
					<ul>
						<li>
							Host services for them, such as email and distributed social networking (Diaspora*, pump.io, $a[GNU] Social, et cetera) to help them avoid hosting with companies that sell their private data (such as Google, Facebook, et cetera)
						</li>
						<li>
							Provide emotional support when needed
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					My community
					<ul>
						<li>
							Volunteer at local charities, such as food banks
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Identify goals:
			<ul>
				<li>
					Short term:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Excel at this course, <span title="Principles of Business Management">BUS 1101</span>
						</li>
						<li>
							Find a home (I still haven&apos;t found a permanent housing solution)
						</li>
						<li>
							Find employment near my new home so I can walk instead of riding the bus
						</li>
						<li>
							Write up some extracurricular essays to both clarify my thoughts to myself and communicate my thoughts to others
						</li>
						<li>
							Build a vegan fast food guide, listing vegan options at common restaurants for when out with non-vegan friends and family
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>Long term:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Finish earning my degree
						</li>
						<li>
							Learn some languages:
							<ul>
								<li>Communication languages:
									<ul>
										<li>
											Esperanto
										</li>
										<li>
											Spanish
										</li>
									</ul>
								</li>
								<li>
									Programming languages:
									<ul>
										<li>
											Java
										</li>
										<li>
											C
										</li>
										<li>
											JavaScript
										</li>
									</ul>
								</li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li>
							Build some useful mobile applications.
							Among others, these:
							<ul>
								<li>
									A functioning auto-responder for $a[SMS] messages
								</li>
								<li>
									An $a[SMS] receiver that forwards all $a[SMS] messages to a provided email address
								</li>
								<li>
									A CalDAV/CardDAV adapter that values privacy and security above tradition, as well as provides full client-side group support
								</li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li>
							Start a Web comic or written story series
						</li>
						<li>
							Host all of my own services from home (email, Web, social networking, $a[XMPP], $a[IRC], et cetera)
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Mission statement:
					To live life in an ethical way, with no regrets, and to do my best to better the world, making it a better place by aiding in the fight for freedom, privacy, and security.
				</li>
				<li>
					Vision statement:
					To work for a company that makes money in an ethical manner.
					Exploiting customers and/or maintaining artificial monopolies isn&apos;t acceptable.
					Ethics are a big part of who I am, and I mustn&apos;t ignore that in the name of employment.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
	</ol>
</section>
<section id="Unit5">
	<h2>Unit 5</h2>
	<h3>Strategy diamond</h3>
	<h4>Personal Arenas:</h4>
	<ul>
		<li>
			I want to live somewhere green, with plenty of trees.
			western Oregon and western Washington in the United Stace are good areas for this.
		</li>
		<li>
			I want to live within walking distance of my workplace.
			I don&apos;t drive because I don&apos;t want to burn fossil fuels, and I&apos;d rather not take the bus if I don&apos;t have to.
		</li>
		<li>
			I&apos;d like to do something with computers in my work, though I&apos;m not sure what yet.
			<ul>
				<li>
					I love learning to host my own Internet-based services.
					Perhaps I could work in Web hosting, email hosting, or $a[VPS] hosting.
				</li>
				<li>
					I do all the home network administration for my family&apos;s intranet.
					Perhaps I could be a network administrator.
				</li>
				<li>
					I love to program.
					Perhaps I could be a programmer.
					However, because of my strong political beliefs on the topic, I would only be able to write free (as in freedom, not price; some people call this &quot;open source&quot;) software.
					I&apos;d rather give up on professional software development than be responsible for bringing more proprietary software into the world.
					If I can find a company to work for that develops free software to make their money (these companies exist, but are rare in the United States), this might be my dream job.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			My leisure activities include (All of these activities can be done in any city with reasonable Internet access, which would be present in any town with computer-based jobs, so they don&apos;t play a role in determining where to live.):
			<ul>
				<li>
					Keeping a <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/">journal</a>
				</li>
				<li>
					Improving on my <a href="https://y.st./">website</a>
				</li>
				<li>
					Learning about Internet-related topics (my current topic is <a href="https://y.st./en/URI_research/">$a[URI]s</a>)
				</li>
				<li>
					Reading freely-licensed Web comics; examples include:
					<ul>
						<li>
							<a href="https://peppercarrot.com/en/static3/webcomics">Pepper&amp;Carrot</a> ({$a['CC BY 4.0']})
						</li>
						<li>
							<a href="http://floraverse.com./">Floraverse</a> ({$a['CC BY-SA 4.0']})
						</li>
						<li>
							<a href="https://mimiandeunice.com/">Mimi and Eunice</a> (no longer in production) ({$a['CC BY-SA 3.0']})
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Listening to/buying freely-licensed music
				</li>
				<li>
					Walking paved paths and sidewalks
				</li>
				<li>
					Armature, low-resolution photography
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
	</ul>
	<h4>Personal Differentiators:</h4>
	<ul>
		<li>
			For any computer-based job, I&apos;ll likely need a computer science or information technology degree.
			I don&apos;t have one now, but I&apos;m working my way through school as we speak.
			(Er, as I type.)
		</li>
		<li>
			I&apos;ll need an understanding of computers and how they work.
			Many people think of computers as magic black boxes that often fail to function, but they often only fail to function because people are using them wrong.
			For example, my mother can&apos;t tell the difference between the the local file system, the Web browser&apos;s interface, and a Web page.
			As a result, ey* often run into problems that ey can&apos;t solve.
			Unlike my mother, I understand the layers of abstraction and how much of how the computer &quot;thinks&quot;.
			This makes it much easier for me to learn to use new software and to use software that I&apos;m familiar with much more effectively.
			I almost never run into computer problems, and when I do, it&apos;s often because of damaged hardware.
		</li>
		<li>
			In my free time, I often experiment with new computer utilities and other software, so I become familiar with a wide verity of computer use cases.
		</li>
		<li>
			I&apos;ve hosted my own services in the past, though I&apos;m not in a position to do that now.
			That kind of experience should be valuable in most networking and hosting jobs.
		</li>
		<li>
			I want to improve my computer skills further, and a job involving heavy computer use can help me do that.
		</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
		* You mentioned in a past assignment that you don&apos;t like the use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Singular_they">singular &quot;they&quot;</a>.
		I actually prefer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Spivak_pronoun">Spivak pronouns</a>, but I typically use singular &quot;they&quot; instead because it&apos;s easier for people to understand.
		I&apos;m more than happy to use the singular pronouns &quot;ey&quot; and &quot;em&quot; to clear that up; it&apos;s not singular pronouns that I&apos;m against, it&apos;s <strong>*gendered*</strong> pronouns.
		I&apos;ll even use the pronoun &quot;it&quot; if you prefer, though most people find such use offensive.
	</p>
	<h4>Personal Vehicles:</h4>
	<ul>
		<li>I need to get better at professional networking.
			That is, building a network of professional acquaintances, peers, and colleagues, not a network of machines.
			<ul>
				<li>
					I thought that University of the People&apos;s Yammer website would help, but all it does is send me blank pages.
					I tried talking to University of the People support, but they didn&apos;t know what to do or what is going on.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			I need to improve my computer skills further using experimentation and online research.
		</li>
		<li>
			I need to improve my computer skills further with the help of my professors and fellow Students.
		</li>
		<li>
			Landing a decent career will likely require help from my professional network, which is why I need to learn how better to create one.
		</li>
	</ul>
	<h4>Personal Staging and Pacing:</h4>
	<ol start="0">
		<li>
			The first step is to find a more stable living environment.
			<ul>
				<li>
					The deadline for this has passed, though I&apos;m managed to get to a situation that&apos;s more stable, so it&apos;s less urgent that I find a permanent home.
				</li>
				<li>
					However, I barely have time to keep up with work and school here.
					Until I find a more stable place, I can&apos;t begin other steps.
					The sooner that I complete this step, the sooner I can reach personal success.
				</li>
				<li>
					I expect that having my own apartment is going to cost upwards of \$700 $a[USD] per month.
					<ul>
						<li>
							I&apos;ll keep costs lower than they otherwise would be by not heating the place (using warm clothing and blankets instead), as well as being frugal with electricity and water in other ways.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Next, I need to work on learning how to set up a professional network.
			I might not get far without one.
			<ul>
				<li>
					This isn&apos;t likely to cost anything.
				</li>
				<li>
					By having a professional network in place, I will be more likely to hear about jobs only known about by insiders and will be more likely to be recommended for jobs.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			I need to finish my degree at University of the people.
			<ul>
				<li>
					This will cost around \$4050 $a[USD] directly to the university, plus a few minor expenses such as postage and envelopes.
				</li>
				<li>
					With a degree, I&apos;ll appear more qualified and be more likely to succeed in getting a good job.
					Additionally, while earning my degree, I&apos;ll gain more experience and more knowledge, making me <strong>*actually*</strong> more qualified, so I can <strong>*keep*</strong> a job that I get.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Once I have my degree and a professional network, I need to find a job with decent pay that doesn&apos;t go against my ethical values.
			<ul>
				<li>
					Minor expenses such as those for paper and ink to print my resume with will apply, but once I have a better job, I&apos;ll be <strong>*making*</strong> money, not losing it.
				</li>
				<li>
					With a better-paying job, I&apos;ll be in a better position to more effectively target my dreams.
					With a job that doesn&apos;t involve compromising my ethics, I can feel better about myself.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Lastly, I need to find and acquire a job that not only pays well and doesn&apos;t compromise my ethics, but that I also will enjoy.
			<ul>
				<li>
					Again, printing resumes will cost money, but that&apos;s the only real expense and it&apos;s not a big one.
				</li>
				<li>
					With this job acquired, I&apos;ll be in a position to give back to the world.
					My job may involve helping the world in some way, but even if not, I&apos;ll have time and little stress.
					I&apos;ll be able to do volunteer work and give to causes that I support, such as the $a[EFF].
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
	</ol>
	<h4>Personal Economic Logic:</h4>
	<ul>
		<li>
			Most of my goal involves finding employment that I find unobjectionable.
			This employment will allow me to pay the bills.
		</li>
		<li>
			I think that my economic logic relates most to my arenas.
			This is because the entirety of the part of my goal that relates to economics is to find employment that allows me to work in my desired arena.
		</li>
		<li>
			I believe my economic logic to be highly sustainable.
			<ul>
				<li>
					I don&apos;t even need as large of a salary as most people do to be happy.
					My bills are lower than most peoples&apos;.
					<ul>
						<li>
							I&apos;m never having children, so that will cut my expenses drastically.
						</li>
						<li>
							I don&apos;t watch television, so that&apos;s a large monthly expense that&apos;s just gone.
						</li>
						<li>
							As an asexual, I don&apos;t need or want a life partner, so I&apos;ll only be paying for myself.
							(I&apos;m not completely against the idea of a life partner, but I have no strong desire to have one.
							It&apos;s also not likely that I&apos;d find a partner that doesn&apos;t want children (the world&apos;s overpopulated as it is), doesn&apos;t want sex (I can&apos;t stand the thought, myself), doesn&apos;t use animal products (I&apos;m a vegan, and wouldn&apos;t want a nonvegan partner), and doesn&apos;t use unethical software (as a strong free software supporter, this quality is <strong>*not*</strong> negotiable in a partner).
							Having a partner is just not required for me and not feasible.)
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					There will likely always be a need for good system administrators and network administrators.
				</li>
				<li>
					If I manage to instead acquire a job in a company that produces free software, such as ownCloud, my job will be even more secure.
					There&apos;s a shortage of free software developers in this country.
					That said, there&apos;s also a shortage of free software <strong>*jobs*</strong> in this country, so it&apos;s likely that I won&apos;t get a free software job to begin with.
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
	</ul>
	<h3>Goals:</h3>
	<p>
		With the above in mind, I&apos;d say that my main goals are:
	</p>
	<ul>
		<li>
			To live free of proprietary software and media
		</li>
		<li>
			To keep my environmental impact to a minimum
		</li>
		<li>
			To work in a job that doesn&apos;t compromise my ethics
		</li>
		<li>
			To contribute to society in a positive way
		</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
		As some lesser goals, I also want to:
	</p>
	<ul>
		<li>
			Continue my public daily journal until the day that I die
		</li>
		<li>
			Improve my photography skills
		</li>
		<li>
			Improve my graphic design skills
		</li>
		<li>
			Write my own freely-licensed fantasy novel
		</li>
		<li>
			Write a series of freely-licensed opinionative essays on various topics
		</li>
		<li>
			Expand my freely-licensed music collection
		</li>
	</ul>
</section>
<section id="Unit6">
	<h2>Unit 6</h2>
	<h3>My goals and the objectives that support them</h3>
	<ul>
		<li>
			Continue my <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/">daily journal</a>
			<ul>
				<li>
					Each day, my objective is to write one entry, detailing all important and semi-important events.
					<ul>
						<li>
							<strong>Specific:</strong>
							Writing one journal entry per day is very specific.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Measurable:</strong>
							Have I written my daily entry for today?
							Yes?
							Then I&apos;ve succeeded in this objective.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Attainable:</strong>
							This is highly attainable, aside from when life is at its most hectic points.
							Even then, I take excellent notes and go back when life calms down to write my missing journal entries.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Realistic:</strong>
							Writing one page per day is very realistic, especially considering the fact that on days that I take a break off from everything, my journal entries simply have one or two sentences reflecting that fact.
							My entries need not be extremely long, they only need to be honest and contain any important details from the day, if there are any important details to tell.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Time-bound:</strong>
							To keep this time-bound, I must write each entry within a week of that day having happened, but preferably, I&apos;d like to have it written before going to bed.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Complete my degrees here at University of the People
			<ul>
				<li>
					Objectives:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Complete my associate degree
							<ul>
								<li>
									Complete this term
									<ul>
										<li>
											Successfully meet and exceed the criteria for this week
											<ul>
												<li>
													Grade the <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Strengths_weaknesses_opportunities_and_threats.xhtml">Unit 5 essay</a> submissions of three students
												</li>
												<li>
													Read the learning guide for the week
												</li>
												<li>
													Read the chapter six of our textbook
												</li>
												<li>
													Complete the discussion assignment for the week
													<ul>
														<li>
															Complete my initial discussion post by Sunday
														</li>
														<li>
															Rate the posts of three other students
														</li>
														<li>
															Respond to the posts of three other students
														</li>
													</ul>
												</li>
												<li>
													Complete the <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Microsoft_and_corporate_social_responsibility.xhtml">written assignment</a> for the week
												</li>
												<li>
													Complete my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit6">learning journal submission</a> for the week
												</li>
												<li>
													Take the ungraded quiz for the week
												</li>
												<li>
													Take the graded quiz for the week
												</li>
											</ul>
										</li>
										<li>
											Successfully meet and exceed the criteria for future weeks
										</li>
									</ul>
								</li>
								<li>
									Complete future terms
								</li>
							</ul>
						</li>
						<li>
							Complete my bachelor degree
							<ul>
								<li>
									I was hoping to have this done in four years from when I started, but due to technical issues on the university&apos;s end, I ended up in only a single course this term, setting me back a term.
									If all goes well, I&apos;ll instead have my degree earned in four years from the start of <strong>*this*</strong> course.
								</li>
							</ul>
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound:
					<ul>
						<li>
							<strong>Specific:</strong> The university as well as the individual courses lay out specifically what the objectives are and how to meet them.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Measurable:</strong> Success can be measured both by submission status of each assignment as well as by the grade earned from each assignment.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Attainable:</strong> Every assignment is designed to be completable.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Realistic:</strong> The only unrealistic assignments are those that ask me to reflect on personal experience.
							Often times, I don&apos;t have the personal experience required.
							However, I&apos;ve managed to get by so far without too much trouble.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Time-bound:</strong> The university lays out very specific deadlines, making everything time-bound.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Set up my own $a[GNU] Social instance and take control of my own social networking data
			<ul>
				<li>
					Objectives:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Find a stable place to live
						</li>
						<li>
							Find an $a[ISP] that both services my area and allows the use of home-based Web-servers; I&apos;ve seen both an $a[ISP] that allows it and one that doesn&apos;t in the past
						</li>
						<li>
							Get my home server set up and, if necessary, updated; I already have the server, I just need to connect it to the network again
						</li>
						<li>
							Check to be sure that Apache (my Web server software) is still functioning normally</li>
						<li>
							Install $a[GNU] Social and get it configured
						</li>
						<li>
							Obtain a signed $a[TLS] certificate for use with the $a[GNU] Social instance; one should never settle for unencrypted $a[HTTP] when running a Web service
						</li>
						<li>
							Set up my own account on my new $a[GNU] Social instance
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Bonus objectives (these aren&apos;t strictly necessary, but they would be awesome to have completed):
					<ul>
						<li>
							Buy a second domain name
						</li>
						<li>
							Use this second domain name with my $a[GNU] Social instance to provide accounts for any friends and family that are interested (my account would be under my existing domain, but my existing domain is for my personal use only)
						</li>
						<li>
							Maybe set up a diaspora* (the asterisk and lower-case &quot;d&quot; are actually part of the name) instance
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound:
					<ul>
						<li>
							<strong>Specific:</strong> The goal is to set up and run very specific software on a Web-accessible machine in my home, then set up an account using it.
							There&apos;s nothing ambiguous about that.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Measurable:</strong> Have I successfully set up and run $a[GNU] Social?
							Have I registered an account and federated my instance with the rest of the $a[GNU] Social social network?
							If yes, then I&apos;ve succeeded.
							The goal isn&apos;t to gain a mass following or find people to follow.
							Rather, the goal is to give people that want to reach me over a social network to do so without Facebook.
							Facebook is noxious, and I won&apos;t set up an account there.
							Having a $a[GNU] Social instance is also a great segue when trying to turn a conversation about Facebook into a conversation about the importance of freedom and privacy.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Attainable:</strong> I&apos;ve personally run a Web server in the past, and others have run $a[GNU] Social instances.
							This will be no extreme feat.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Realistic:</strong> I&apos;ll need to get back into a situation in which I am actually <strong>*able*</strong> to rum Web services from my home, but it&apos;s very much realistic; I&apos;ve done it before.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Time-bound:</strong> I want to get this done in the next five years.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Set up a $a[Tor] node:
			<ul>
				<li>
					Objectives:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Find a stable place to live
						</li>
						<li>
							Find an $a[ISP]
						</li>
						<li>
							Connect my server to the network
						</li>
						<li>
							My server&apos;s already configured as a $a[Tor] node, so once it&apos;s connected, everything else will be automatic.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Bonus objectives (these aren&apos;t strictly necessary, but they would be awesome to have completed):
					<ul>
						<li>
							Find an $a[ISP] that has decent policies regarding proxy hosting
						</li>
						<li>
							Reconfigure my $a[Tor] middle node to become a $a[Tor] <strong>*exit*</strong> node
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound:
					<ul>
						<li>
							<strong>Specific:</strong>
							It&apos;s very specific, I want to run a specific Internet-accessible service.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Measurable:</strong>
							Do I have a $a[Tor] node running?
							Is it connected to the $a[Tor] network?
							If yes, then I&apos;ve succeeded.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Attainable:</strong>
							I&apos;ve done this before, I can do it again.
							This time though, I want to make it last.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Realistic:</strong>
							I&apos;m basically getting back what I once had.
							This isn&apos;t some new and unrealistic feat.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Time-bound:</strong>
							I want to have this done in the next five years.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Write a {$a['CC BY-SA']}-licensed fantasy novel
			<ul>
				<li>
					Objectives:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Improve my writing skills (Would <span title="English Composition 2">ENGL 1102</span> help with this?
							Probably.)
						</li>
						<li>
							Finish fleshing out the magic system that I want to use in the story
						</li>
						<li>
							Improve my separation of character qualities to produce several interesting characters instead of one too-powerful-to-even-be-interesting character
						</li>
						<li>
							Work out the geography of the world that the story will be set in
						</li>
						<li>
							Work out the politics of the residents of this world
						</li>
						<li>
							Strike a subtle balance of ideals and interest in the story that I want to tell
						</li>
						<li>
							Write the story, chapter by chapter
						</li>
						<li>
							Release the story under a free cultural license; probably {$a['CC BY-SA']}
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Bonus objectives (these aren&apos;t strictly necessary, but they would be awesome to have completed):
					<ul>
						<li>
							Publish the story in book form
						</li>
						<li>
							Sell copies of the book
						</li>
						<li>
							Find other merchandising opportunities
						</li>
						<li>
							Write squeals
						</li>
						<li>
							Set up a website where fans can submit work, some of which may become canon
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound:
					<ul>
						<li>
							<strong>Specific:</strong> I want to write a freely-licensed fantasy story, in which the magic used in the world falls into eight basic types.
							Everyone will have an aptitude for a particular type of magic, and their aptitude will determine the one type of magic that they are able to perform best, the three types of magic that they can at least perform well, the three types of magic that they&apos;re really bad at, and the one type of magic that they&apos;re unable to perform at all.
							The eight aptitudes and their corresponding levels of ability in other types of magic have been specifically planned out, but listing them in depth is beyond the scope of this learning journal entry.
							I want to tie in political views, while still having an interesting story and relatable characters.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Measurable:</strong>
							Have I completed my novel?
							If yes, I&apos;ve succeeded.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Attainable:</strong>
							I&apos;m not the first person to write a fantasy novel and I won&apos;t be the last.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Realistic:</strong>
							Realistic?
							Fantasy isn&apos;t supposed to be realistic!
							Joking aside, I think that it&apos;s not too unrealistic to think that I can write.
							I have not formal training in it, so I&apos;ll likely need to take creative writing courses and tutorials, but I&apos;ve had a very active imagination since I was a child.
							I&apos;ve come up with countless stories, I just haven&apos;t put them into words, so those stories were lost.
							I have the potential, I just need to refine it.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Time-bound:</strong>
							I&apos;d like to have the first release, in digital form, available within the next twenty years.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<li>
			Write practical, opinionative articles
			<ul>
				<li>
					Objectives:
					<ul>
						<li>
							Research and write an articles about the importance of free software
						</li>
						<li>
							Research and write an articles about the importance of free culture
						</li>
						<li>
							Research and write an articles about the problems caused by monopolies
						</li>
						<li>
							Research and write an articles about the problems caused by patents
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
				<li>
					Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound:
					<ul>
						<li>
							<strong>Specific:</strong>
							I have over a dozen articles that I want to write on various topics.
							However, I&apos;ve made this goal specific by narrowing it down to four very specific and related topics.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Measurable:</strong>
							It&apos;s easy to know if I&apos;ve written all four yet, and even partial progress is measurable on this one.
							Each essay researched and written is a step forward.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Attainable:</strong>
							I&apos;ve been writing small, nonfiction pieces for years.
							Most of my work was lost due to a hard drive failure and my own failure to have a back up copy, but I still even have proof of my work since <span title="{$entry(2015, 3, 7)}">2015-03-07</span>, and it&apos;s plenty to show that I can write decently.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Realistic:</strong>
							The main problem is time constraints.
							The writing itself is plenty realistic, and given the time, this will very much become a reality.
						</li>
						<li>
							<strong>Time-bound:</strong>
							I want to have this done in the next five years, but hopefully sooner.
						</li>
					</ul>
				</li>
			</ul>
		</li>
	</ul>
	<h3>Relation to my personal mission and vision statements</h3>
	<p>
		In <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit4">Unit 4</a>, I identified my personal mission statement to be:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			To live life in an ethical way, with no regrets, and to do my best to better the world, making it a better place by aiding in the fight for freedom, privacy, and security.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		I also identified my personal vision statement to be:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			To work for a company that makes money in an ethical manner.
			Exploiting customers and/or maintaining artificial monopolies isn&apos;t acceptable.
			Ethics are a big part of who I am, and I mustn&apos;t ignore that in the name of employment.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		Keeping my journal relates to my mission statement because it keeps me from doing things that I&apos;ll later regret.
		If I know that I&apos;m going to have to publicly admit that I&apos;ve done something (as my journal is publicly available), I&apos;m more likely to put some thought into whether or not I should actually be doing it.
	</p>
	<p>
		Completing my degree relates to my mission statement because it will help me better myself, putting me in a better position to better the world.
		It relates to my vision statement because it will help me in acquiring employment.
		Ethical companies are in short supply, so if I plan to work for one, I need to make myself stand out from the crowd in a good way.
		While holding a degree won&apos;t necessarily make me stand out at all, <strong>*not*</strong> having one will make me stand out in a negative way.
		Even if I end up in a generic job such as system administration, which doesn&apos;t directly contribute to helping the world, I&apos;ll still likely need a computer science or information technology degree for this.
	</p>
	<p>
		Setting up a $a[GNU] Social instance relates to my mission statement because it helps me put control of my data back in my own hands.
		This provides me with more freedom, more privacy, and arguably, more security, as no third-party can intentionally allow a security breach.
		It also gives me a conversation starter, helping me convince others of the need to take back their privacy and freedom as well.
	</p>
	<p>
		Setting up a $a[Tor] node, especially a $a[Tor] exit node, would aid people that are already trying to take their privacy back from those that would strip them of it.
		Likewise, $a[Tor] is a great tool for evading censorship, so running a $a[Tor] node and contributing to the $a[Tor] network also helps provide people with the freedom to access information that their respective countries tries to keep them from.
	</p>
	<p>
		Writing a novel and releasing it freely aids in my fight for freedom by helping provide a free alternative to the proprietary book market.
		I can&apos;t replace the whole market on my own, but I can do my part.
		Additionally, if I can find a way to capitalize on this without resorting to making the book nonfree, I can <strong>*create*</strong> a company that values freedom instead of searching for one.
	</p>
	<p>
		Writing opinionative articles allows me to express my views and attempt to convince people of them.
		In this way, I can show people the need for things such as free software and free culture for security; privacy; and freedom, while exposing how bad for people and innovation patents and monopolies are.
		Additionally, when people understand my views, they can argue better against me, providing me with other thought processes that I might not otherwise see.
		This allows me to correct and update my views, so I can fight for what I truly should be fighting for.
		Ethics are a big part of who I am, and I want to do my best to alleviate the world&apos;s problems.
	</p>
	<h3>Relation to my strategy diamond</h3>
	<p>
		My strategy diamond is too large to repeat here in this assignment without cluttering it up too much, but it has been archived at this link to <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit5">Unit 5</a>.
		That diamond yielded some interesting goals last week, but nothing that fit the criteria of being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
		These new goals do fit both the strategy diamond and those criteria though.
	</p>
	<p>
		Keeping my journal relates to my strategy diamond because my diamond specifically mentions using my journal as one of my leisure activities.
		It helps my collect my thoughts and unwind for the day, preparing me for the next day.
	</p>
	<p>
		Earning my degree relates to my strategy diamond because it&apos;s specifically mentioned in my staging and pacing section as one of the steps that I must complete in order to succeed.
	</p>
	<p>
		Setting up a $a[GNU] Social instance relates both to running my own website and to learning about how computer software functions, both of which are touched upon in my strategy diamond.
		Additionally, it may be useful for networking with the type of people that would be able to help me secure employment in the type of ethical company that I&apos;d want to work for.
	</p>
	<p>
		The goal of running a $a[Tor] node is part of running network services, which is dealt with in my strategy diamond.
		Not only does it help me control my own data and take back my privacy, it also helps me learn valuable skills that would be useful in a networking job.
	</p>
	<p>
		Writing a freely-licensed novel would be a way for me to contribute to the free culture that I enjoy.
		My strategy diamond touches on my love of free Web comics, but if I had more time, I&apos;d also be reading out-of-copyright works such as Alice&apos;s Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.
		Free cultural works in general are of high interest to me.
		Again, writing could open up a dream job for me, as I could work for myself, knowing that I don&apos;t have an employer that wants to exploit customers.
	</p>
	<p>
		My opinionative articles relate to a couple of points of my strategy diamond.
		One major component is my journaling.
		When a topic comes up in a given day, I tend to write a bunch about it in my journal entry for the day, which immediately gets lost amongst my other journal entries.
		That writing isn&apos;t being used to its full potential.
		If I could at least get these articles started, I could flesh them out with new ideas whenever I&apos;m feeling heated about a given topic, or if the points that I&apos;d like to make that day have already been made on previous days, I can outright save time by not duplicating that effort.
		All four topics have a strong tie to computer ethics, and my differentiators are all about learning to properly use computers.
		Proper use of anything nontrivial (such as a computer) should involve a discussion on ethics.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit7">
	<h2>Unit 7</h2>
	<p>
		The model of planned change developed by Kurt Lewin has three stages: unfreeze, change, and refreeze.
	</p>
	<h3>Unfreeze</h3>
	<p>
		One of the biggest causes of failure in a proposed organizational change isn&apos;t that the change itself is for the worse, but that the change faces so much resistance.
		During the unfreeze stage, on organization tries to prepare its membership to embrace the change and tries to minimize the resistances that the change will face.
	</p>
	<p>
		One important step in preparing employees for a change is to simply open up the lines of communication and let the employees know what&apos;s going to happen.
		The unknown can be very scary, so when employees don&apos;t know fully what&apos;s going on, they will be more likely to resist.
		By explaining what the change entails, you can set your employees minds at ease, as they won&apos;t have much left to fear.
		Instead of filling in the gaps with worst-case scenarios, they&apos;ll have a clear picture of how the new system will run.
		Additionally, they may become exited about the change, depending on what it is.
		By letting them know what to look forward to, you may provide them with a reason to actively want the change to succeed.
		It&apos;s important too to communicate not only the change itself, but what management hopes to achieve with the change.
		Likewise, it&apos;s useful for top management to communicate the change directly to employees, showing them that the change has support from the top, and is not just something that middle management is trying to do on their own.
	</p>
	<p>
		Another thing that must be addressed when preparing employees for a change is to instill them with a sense of urgency.
		If employees don&apos;t think that the change is necessary or they think that it can be put off until later, they&apos;ll be more likely to try to prevent or delay it, potentially causing the attempted change to fail.
		Convincing the employees of the need and benefits of the change doesn&apos;t need to be done all at once.
		If the leadership can identify key influential individuals in the organization, those individuals can help convince everyone else.
	</p>
	<p>
		Finally, it&apos;s important for employees to feel that their needs are met and that their concerns are addressed.
		Management needs to make it clear that they are ready to listen to their employees, and involve employees in the planning of the change.
		Likewise, they need may need to provide training for employees, both so that employees know how to act in the new system and so that employees feel like they can handle and thrive in the new system.
	</p>
	<h3>Change</h3>
	<p>
		After preparing employees for the change in the unfreezing stage, the next stage is to actually make the change itself.
		Changing will be difficult, and may leave employees feeling unsure of themselves and unsure of their new role in the organization.
		Mistakes will be made, but it&apos;s the responsibility of the management to reassure employees and help them through this difficult stage.
	</p>
	<p>
		During this period, if the change is large in scope, it can also be very helpful to break the large change into a series of smaller changes.
		With smaller goals to shoot for and a chain of successful small goals already accomplished, employees will have an easier time seeing that the change is actually right on track and that it&apos;s happening successfully.
		This can lead to their support of the change growing, instead of diminishing as frustration sets in.
	</p>
	<p>
		If unexpected hindrances to the change pop up, they must be dealt with and eliminated.
		Otherwise, the change effort might be thwarted during this crucial period of vulnerability.
	</p>
	<h3>Refreeze</h3>
	<p>
		Finally, once the change has been implemented, management needs to ensure that the company&apos;s culture has changed too, making sure that the changes are deeply embedded in the mindset of the company.
		Otherwise, it&apos;s likely that habits and old ways of thinking may cause the company to go back to its old ways, like a rubber band snapping back into place after being stretched into a new shape.
		Once you remove the pressure, if the company&apos;s mindset isn&apos;t any different than it was before, no permanent change will have been made.
	</p>
	<p>
		Success needs to be communicated to the employees so that they realize that the change was beneficial.
		They need to feel that there&apos;s a reason not to go back to their old ways long enough for new habits to form.
		Likewise, it can be helpful to incentivize the adoption of the new system.
		By rewarding employees that embrace the new way of doing things, or even just recognizing them in front of their peers, it may be possible to encourage those that are still reluctant about the change to get on board.
		Likewise, those that are already embracing the change may be encouraged to continue to do so.
	</p>
	<h3>Other thoughts</h3>
	<p>
		According to some more modern management experts, although Kurt Lewin&apos;s model is insightful, it&apos;s also flawed.
		According to the model of change proposed by Kurt Lewin, changes are specific events.
		That is to say, a change begins and ends, and after a change, the company remains the same until the next change.
		Modern experts disagree, saying that change should be a more fluid and continuous process.
		Continual change such as this is something that learning organizations are very good at embracing and harnessing.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit8">
	<h2>Unit 8</h2>
	<h3>Reflective comments/notes</h3>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 28)}">2016-12-28</h4>
	<p>
		This week&apos;s coursework was made available at 21:05 in my time zone today.
		I was planning to get started right away, but a sudden flu left me mostly incapacitated.
		Had I known that we&apos;d be taking daily notes of our activities during this unit, I would have stayed up and tried to get started right away anyway.
		Oh well, there&apos;s nothing that I can do about this little embarrassment now.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 29)}">2016-12-29</h4>
	<p>
		Before going through the learning guide, I took a quick look at the three major assignments this week, as I often do.
		The <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit8">learning journal</a> assignment is one that requires taking daily notes on my progress.
		That won&apos;t be difficult, as I already do take notes of my progress.
		I&apos;ll just need to take those notes in my learning journal instead of my regular journal this week.
		The written assignment will prove difficult though.
		It&apos;s another assignment where I&apos;ve got to reflect on past experience, but I don&apos;t think that I have the past experience to reflect on.
		I&apos;ve got to choose one company that I&apos;ve worked for and reflect on their culture, but I&apos;m mostly oblivious to culture; I always have been.
		The discussion assignment should be easier though, as it doesn&apos;t require that I have worked for the company that I report about.
		Research is something that I&apos;m more than capable of.
	</p>
	<p>
		Having gotten a decent idea of what I&apos;d be doing this week, I read through the learning guide.
		Predictably, we&apos;re reading Chapter 8 of the assigned textbook.
		I&apos;m not sure why I don&apos;t get a head start on the reading each week before it&apos;s assigned.
		We&apos;ve gotten about halfway through the book in this course, so I kind of wonder if a second course covers the material in the other half.
		Also, it seems that the learning journal assignment shown on the submission page doesn&apos;t match the one in the learning guide.
		Which one is accurate?
		I suppose that I&apos;ll just have to do both.
	</p>
	<p>
		I read my way though two of the six sections of the chapter.
		I&apos;ll work on further reading tomorrow.
		It looks like unlike last week, I won&apos;t be able to break up the reading with assignments.
		I&apos;ll need to fully complete the reading assignment before moving on.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 30)}">2016-12-30</h4>
	<p>
		I read two of the remaining four chapter sections.
		The part about aggressive companies falling short in corporate social responsibility and Microsoft being an aggressive company is so fitting.
		There&apos;s a reason that I wrote my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Microsoft_and_corporate_social_responsibility.xhtml">Unit 6 essay</a> on Microsoft; Sure, Microsoft&apos;s environmental efforts are awesome, but aside from that, Microsoft has no ethics and no corporate social responsibility.
		The Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton keep databases of requests made by their guests?
		That&apos;s a bit ...
		creepy.
		I suppose that it leads to a better level of service for returning customers, but at what cost?
		I think that I&apos;d most like to work for a company with an innovative culture, but working for a company with a people-oriented culture wouldn&apos;t be bad either.
	</p>
	<p>
		Section 8.4 discusses exactly what our <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Little_Caesars_culture.xhtml">essay</a> for the week is about.
		I was wrong yesterday when I thought that I wouldn&apos;t be able to take a break from the reading assignment and work on other assignments.
		I wrote up a little over two pages by my count, but the concept of &quot;pages&quot; is pretty ambiguous, given that we aren&apos;t told what font and font size to use.
		For that reason, on these &quot;two page&quot; assignments, I usually try to aim for about four pages to be safe.
		That way, it can&apos;t be claimed that I wasn&apos;t detailed enough or that I didn&apos;t meet the length requirement.
		That said, if a specific font was required, it&apos;d probably be that one Microsoft font that everyone loves to default to, a font that I don&apos;t have installed on my machine because it&apos;s proprietary.
		Using that font, my machine would fall back to a different font for display, so I wouldn&apos;t know for sure how it would render on my readers&apos; side.
	</p>
	<p>
		Having completed my essay more or less, I got back to the reading assignment and completed that.
		I ran out of time though, and had to head to work before completing anything else.
		My focus tomorrow should be my initial post for the discussion assignment.
	</p>
	<p>
		I was going to ask our head manager at work about any stories and rituals that we might have, as I couldn&apos;t think of any off hand, but the timing wasn&apos;t right.
		There was a ...
		mishap, and now wasn&apos;t the time for small talk.
		I was reminded of a story that we tell by one of our shift leaders though.
		Likewise, while working, I came up with a few more points that I want to make in my essay.
		I&apos;ll probably touch up my essay tomorrow, as well as work on my discussion post.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 31)}">2016-12-31</h4>
	<p>
		I worked on my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Little_Caesars_culture.xhtml">essay</a> some more, but it&apos;s still shorter than I&apos;d like it to be.
		That said, It&apos;s also missing some of the information that I want to include.
		If the timing is right tonight, I need to ask the head manager about any stories and rituals that we have.
		We might have one or two more stories that I don&apos;t recall off-hand, though I highly doubt that we actually have any rituals.
		If we did, I think that I&apos;d have noticed them.
	</p>
	<p>
		With the essay put on the back burner again, I tried to get started on my discussion post.
		I still needed to deal with the aftermath of the situation at work though, so I quickly realized that I didn&apos;t have time.
		Instead, I took a couple of the ungraded quizzes.
		I got a perfect score on the first one, which was a major surprise, as I&apos;ve been doing very poorly on the quizzes.
		On the second, I did a lot better than I normally do, but I still need to study more and retake that one.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 1)}">2016-01-01</h4>
	<p>
		Unfortunately, one of my coworkers beat me to the punch in asking the head manager about rituals last night, and the timing was all off.
		As such, the head manager had no idea what they were talking about, but I now can&apos;t ask them later, as that would be pestering them.
		I specifically told my coworker that I was going to ask later, but they didn&apos;t listen.
		Oh well.
		I&apos;m certain that we don&apos;t have any rituals anyway.
		In better news, I was able to get a second story for my essay, one that I hadn&apos;t heard before.
		Apparently, it happened more recently, some time after I quit last time.
	</p>
	<p>
		Due to having a closing shift last night and an opening shift this morning, I didn&apos;t get enough sleep and didn&apos;t have the energy for schoolwork.
		I did get my initial discussion post in, but that was about it.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 2)}">2016-01-02</h4>
	<p>
		I wrote up the part of this learning journal entry pertaining to how this course has influenced my career plans.
		I&apos;d say that it&apos;s pushed me towards trying to start my own small company.
		I&apos;m still undecided, but it&apos;s a step in that direction.
		Next, I wrote up the part of my learning journal entry on the clues as to the university&apos;s culture and how it has impacted my learning.
		I&apos;m not clear on if this is actually part of the assignment or not, but it is listed in the learning guide as being the learning journal assignment for the week.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 3)}">2016-01-03</h4>
	<p>
		I added to my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Little_Caesars_culture.xhtml">essay</a> again, then finished my discussion assignment.
		I also graded the essays from last week and studied for the final exam.
		Tomorrow will be my all-day study session to try to improve my score.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 4)}">2016-01-04</h4>
	<p>
		I studied for most of the day, then I went over my main <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Little_Caesars_culture.xhtml">essay</a> for the week one last time before handing it in.
		Strangely, when I went to hand it in, I found that the usual text field was missing.
		I couldn&apos;t submit my essay in $a[XHTML] as I always do, so I had to paste it into an ODT file and reformat all the text by hand.
		That was a bit of a drag, but it got the job done.
		I hate choosing a font, which is something that I don&apos;t have to do in $a[XHTML]; instead, I just use the university&apos;s $a[CSS] to take care of that.
		Personally, I love monospace fonts, but I get the feeling that most people edon&apos;t like them, so I try to choose something else.
		I ended up settling on Century Schoolbook L.
		I also dropped the fonts size down a bit so that the essay&apos;d only be about two and a half pages long.
		Without a doubt, other students also won&apos;t be able to use the text box this week, so all the essays that I grade tomorrow will require that I download them and open them in a separate application instead of just reading them in-browser.
		Stranger still, unlike with past essay assignments, this essay assignment has a final submission button; it doesn&apos;t simply time out and submit your draft at the end of the submission period.
		Is this ...
		not one of the peer-graded essay assignments after all?
		Now that I look, it also doesn&apos;t have the peer-grading timeline at the top of the page.
		I guess that it probably isn&apos;t.
		Huh.
		Not only that, but it seems that I have an extra day to go over it.
		I guess that I&apos;ll look over it again tomorrow and hand it in at that time.
	</p>
	<p>
		I would hand in my learning journal assignment today if I hadn&apos;t already, but because of the daily entries, this assignment is obviously required to be submitted on the last possible day.
	</p>
	<p>
		Having studied all day, I took the final practice exam, and I actually scored decently.
		I waited until the real final exam was available, took it, then waited with baited breath to see the results.
		However, the results aren&apos;t available yet!
		I&apos;ll have to see how I did later.
		I was fairly confident with about ninety percent of the questions though, so hopefully I scored well.
	</p>
	<p>
		It seems that it&apos;s not just image files that the university allows to be labeled with a license.
		My essay got labeled as well.
		I make all of my essays available on my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/">website</a> under the $a[GNU] {$a['GPLv3+']}.
		That license doesn&apos;t work as well for nontext formats and text formats that aren&apos;t plain text though, such as ODT files.
		The university doesn&apos;t offer my usual license anyway.
		As such, I&apos;m licensing the ODT file that will likely only be seen by my professor under the {$a['CC BY-SA']} license.
		The copy on my website is still under the $a[GNU] {$a['GPLv3+']} though.
	</p>
	<h4 title="{$entry(2016, 12, 5)}">2016-01-05</h4>
	<p>
		I went over my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/Little_Caesars_culture.xhtml">essay</a> one last time, and actually found another typo that I missed when I went over it yesterday.
		I also made a few other minor edits, then handed it in.
	</p>
	<p>
		Lastly, I went over my <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/#Unit8">learning journal entry</a> looking for typos.
		I found and corrected a couple, as well as slightly improved the language used in a couple of places.
		After handing in my corrected version, I was done for the unit and done for the term.
	</p>
	<h3>Where I go from here</h3>
	<p>
		Originally, I wasn&apos;t intending to go into business administration.
		In fact, I didn&apos;t even want to take this course!
		Due to a bug in University of the People&apos;s system, this was the only course that I could register for; I couldn&apos;t register for any course that actually provided credits that I need for my computer science degree.
		However, after taking this course, my opinions have changed a bit.
		I&apos;ll likely spend my other elective credits taking business courses as well; specifically <span title="Basic Accounting">BUS 1102</span>, <span title="Principles of Marketing">BUS 2201</span>, <span title="Multinational Management">BUS 2207</span>, and <span title="Business and Society">BUS 3306</span>.
		If I can pick up the business skills that I need, I might be able to start my own small company, allowing me to support myself without working for a company that requires that I compromise my ethics.
		Additionally, instead of working to make someone else&apos;s ideas a reality, I can bring my own ideas into the world.
	</p>
	<p>
		Thanks to this course, I now understand that motivating my company&apos;s employees will require that I tailor my motivational tactics to each employee&apos;s personal values.
		I understand the need to create a strong mission and vision statement from the beginning, and the importance of making sure that rewards systems actually reward behavior that pushes the company forward.
		I understand that while getting into a market with high entry barriers can be difficult, success can also result in a more profitable business.
		Various tools presented throughout the course will be of great help too, such as <a href="https://y.st./en/coursework/BUS1101/SCAMPER.xhtml">SCAMPER</a>, which may help me figure out a new product with which to start my business.
	</p>
	<h3>University of the People&apos;s culture</h3>
	<h4>Clues as to the culture</h4>
	<p>
		One of the biggest clues as to University of the People&apos;s culture comes from looking at the software requirements.
		My old school was very controlling, strict, and into proprietary software.
		As such, they had a <strong>*graded assignment*</strong> in which you prove that you have Microsoft Office installed and a product key activated.
		They demanded that Adobe Flash be installed, despite it being proprietary, outdated, and full of known security holes.
		They required that specific Web browsers be used, despite the fact that their website worked perfectly well in different and better Web browsers and despite the fact that those Web browsers don&apos;t work on every operating system.
		Let&apos;s compare that to University of the People&apos;s software requirements.
		University of the People recommends Firefox, but allows any working Web browser.
		They also recommend that if students don&apos;t have Microsoft Office installed, that they install <strong>*OpenOffice*</strong>.
		Both of these are free software that are available to many platforms.
		This shows that University of the People is very open to the idea of free software, actively encouraging it.
		Likewise, they&apos;re allowing their students the freedom to go against the recommendations and choose their own Web browsers and office suites.
		The Adobe Flash requirement is dropped altogether, showing not only a support for freedom and security, but a support for other platforms, as Adobe Flash only runs on a select few systems.
		Being able to choose your own Web browser and office suite obviously plays into cross-platform support as well.
		I&apos;m having trouble finding the software requirements page now, but I did comment on what these requirements made me think of the university on <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/08-August/09.xhtml">2016-08-09</a>.
	</p>
	<p>
		The next major clue comes from the introductory course, <span title="Online Education Strategies">UNIV 1001</span>.
		I no longer have access to this course material, but I did write about this on <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/09-September/01.xhtml">2016-09-01</a>, when I saved the following quote in my journal:</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Unless otherwise specified, the format of your uploaded file must be one that can be opened by MS Office and Open Office programs.
			Please submit all your text work as .doc or .odt files.
		</p>
		<p>
			For presentations, use .ppt or .odp files and for spreadsheets use .xls or .ods files.
			If you try to upload a file that is bigger than the maximum file upload size (10MB), you will receive an error message.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		So what does this mean?
		While University of the People is by no means trying to push that people choose to use the free format, they also aren&apos;t pushing that people use the proprietary format either!
		This shows a great support for free software users.
		Some of use mildly prefer the free format if given a choice, but don&apos;t mind the proprietary format.
		However, I do know some die-hard free format users that absolutely hate using nonfree formats, and University of the People isn&apos;t trying to make them!
		Likewise, I imagine that some free software users may simply save their documents without specifying a format, which causes the document to be saved in the free format.
		The university isn&apos;t requiring that these students waste the effort later converting these files before uploading them.
	</p>
	<p>
		I also noted on <a href="https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/08-August/29.xhtml">2016-08-29</a> that University&apos;s image uploader has two different copyright status options and six Creative Commons licensing options to apply to images.
		Most people would have set up an upload form that assumes that all rights are reserved because most people aren&apos;t very aware of the concept of free cultural licensing and semi-free cultural licensing.
		This shows that University of the People supports free culture (as three of their options are free culture-compatible, but also that they don&apos;t push free culture (as five of their options are <strong>*not*</strong> free culture-compatible).
		Likewise, many of University of the People&apos;s reading resources are nonfree, so it&apos;s clear that while free culture is supported, it&apos;s not the goal of University of the People, and isn&apos;t really a strong priority.
		A great example is this course&apos;s textbook, a work under a nonfree license that prohibits commercialism (free culture allows commercialism).
	</p>
	<p>
		Before even enrolling in the university, you can also see the school&apos;s low tuition rates.
		At \$100 $a[USD] per course, I&apos;m not sure how University of the People is even covering their costs.
		The university is clearly trying to make education affordable to the masses, making cost much less of a barrier than it otherwise would be.
		To University of the People, education is more important than money.
		University of the People even accepts applications from aspiring students worldwide, spreading education as far as they can.
	</p>
	<h4>The culture&apos;s impact on my education</h4>
	<p>
		At my old school, I didn&apos;t feel like I belonged.
		Twice every week, I&apos;d be reminded of the fact that I didn&apos;t belong there by the mere technical requirements of the system.
		And that&apos;s when the school didn&apos;t find other ways of reminding me that me and my beliefs weren&apos;t accepted there.
		It was an ugly situation and made it difficult to actually focus on the learning.
		However, here at University of the People, I&apos;ve been able to set aside all that and simply study.
		I&apos;ve had technical issues when trying to reach University of the People&apos;s social network (I can&apos;t get the social network to function at all), but the learning environment and the study material are fully compatible with my free computing environment and no one tries to get me to install Microsoft products.
		Additionally, University of the People&apos;s admission of students from around the world along with the school&apos;s policy of having students grade one another&apos;s essays has exposed me to new ways of viewing the unit topics.
		The ability to label the files that I upload as being under a free license has also made me feel at home, which has made the classroom environment that much nicer of a place to spend my time.
	</p>
</section>
END
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